Gulls reclaim Poche Beach as falcon test ends

Jorge Herrera shows how walking the beach with a tethered hawk is enough to frighten away seagulls that had been peppering the shoreline. His routine was to work in shifts, morning and afternoon, with the gulls often returning at midday in his absence but not overnight after he left at sundown.FRED SWEGLES, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Gulls that were shooed away by birds of prey on a nearly daily basis the past month are again assuming ownership of Poche Beach, notorious as one of California's most polluted strands.

Swarms of gulls are back – bathing undisturbed in a pond and drinking freshly filtered water that a $3 million Orange County runoff-cleanup installation produces next to the beach. And they're back to making droppings that experts believe are contributing a lot to the beach's pollution.

A month-long $8,000 experiment by the city of San Clemente ended last weekend. The city hired a falconer to see whether using tethered predatory birds to clear the beach and pond of gulls would make a difference in ocean water quality.

Mary Vondrak, environmental analyst with the city's clean-ocean program, said it could take weeks to review data and reach conclusions.

Options could include continuing to use a falconer at Poche, trying to eliminate the pond at Poche or using a falconer to try to deprive the gulls of their main food source, trash at Prima Deshecha Landfill about three miles inland from the beach.

Vondrak said the cost of using a falconer to control the gulls at the landfill would be about $100,000 a year. "We have considered a partnership through a preliminary proposal for a state Clean Beaches Initiative grant that was submitted in August to help fund such an endeavor," she said. "That proposal also has a component focusing on the pond and investigating solutions for removing or minimizing the freshwater source to the birds."

The storm-drain outlet at Poche is in Dana Point, near the border with San Clemente. The watershed that feeds the beach is in San Clemente. The environmental group Heal the Bay regularly rates Poche one of California's 10 most polluted beaches. Doheny State Beach, also in Dana Point and also populated with gulls, also is a fixture on that list.

At Poche, the county's filtration system cleans storm-drain water arriving from inland areas and dispenses it near shore. But it stagnates in the pond, and gulls' droppings make things worse. The county is looking at options for dispensing the cleaned water past the pond. They would need regulatory agencies' approvals.

A $265,000 watershed study commissioned by the city found lots of bird pollution in the pond and the ocean. The study blamed gulls for most of the bacteria in the surf zone.

"The pond is on county property," Vondrak said, "and permissions/permits would be required from the state regulatory agencies in order to fill it in or modify it in any way. This would likely require a biological assessment of the pond to ensure no endangered or protected species live there."

Falconer Jorge Herrera said his shooing of Poche's gulls with hawks and falcons effectively deprived them of their water source – the pond – whenever he was present. When he left, they would return but, over time, the relentless presence of the predators had an effect. The birds weren't allowed to fly freely because they probably would kill the gulls.

"Before we started," Herrera said during his final weekend at Poche, "there were gulls here all night and into the morning." As the experiment went on, the birds were spending nights somewhere to the north, he said.

His routine was to arrive at 6:30 a.m. and clear the beach. The gulls, knowing he would leave around 10:30, would return once he left, though not always. He would return at 3:30 p.m. and the beach would be clear when he left at sundown. At that point, he said, the gulls would overnight elsewhere and he was back at 6:30 the next morning to continue the predator patrol if and when they returned. From time to time, he would alter the routine.

"At first, they just went out to sea and sat," he said. "Now some go out to sea, but they break. We are depriving them of the water." That has ended, so the gulls again have free use of Poche's pond while continuing to feast on Prima Deshecha Landfill's trash.

Prima Deshecha tried hiring a falconer in 2002 in an experiment to shoo away birds. The falcons were fiercely effective, but within a month, the falconer quit, finding the job too demanding.

Vondrak said she has heard that a landfill in Santa Barbara County has had success controlling gulls with predatory birds and that some other landfills use falcons. She said Herrera works with his predators at El Sobrante Landfill in Corona.

"I've been there three years now," Herrera said. "The gulls know there is food there, (so) they are going to try. We don't have as many, a lot less every year." He estimated that 10,000 gulls foraged at El Sobrante when he started and that last year it was down to about 4,000.

Julie Chay, public-information officer for Orange County's landfills, said falconry has been discussed and that San Clemente could make a proposal. But the county would need to be convinced it wouldn't just "shoo them off and have them bother our neighbors," Chay said.

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Jorge Herrera shows how walking the beach with a tethered hawk is enough to frighten away seagulls that had been peppering the shoreline. His routine was to work in shifts, morning and afternoon, with the gulls often returning at midday in his absence but not overnight after he left at sundown. FRED SWEGLES, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
A sign warning of high bacteria counts in the ocean at Poche Beach had a rather large audience of gulls Sept. 21, one of the falconer's days off. FRED SWEGLES, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
This is how Poche Beach looked Saturday afternoon, just before falconer Jorge Herrera arrived with a predator to send the crowd scurrying. FRED SWEGLES, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
At far left, off in the distance, Jorge Herrera hoists a hawk on a pole and, as soon as he does, seagulls begin to flee Poche Beach. San Clemente hired the falconer for a month-long experiment, shooing gulls away from a beach where their droppings are believed responsible for much of the ocean pollution for which Poche is famous statewide. FRED SWEGLES, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Gulls flee Poche Beach on Saturday as falconer Jorge Herrera begins to walk the beach with his hawk Timber tethered to a pole. He has three hawks and 13 falcons. He also works a landfill and several resorts. FRED SWEGLES, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Gulls were not only on Poche Beach but farther north along Beach Road. Falconer Jorge Herrera effectively cleared them all away, leaving them to resettle somewhere to the north. FRED SWEGLES, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Falconer Jorge Herrera shows how his female hawk Timber can, by her sheer presence as a predator, scare droves of seagulls away from Poche Beach. FRED SWEGLES, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
The San Clemente Pier and the skyline of San Clemente are in the background as falconer Jorge Herrera walks up the coast from Poche Beach, clearing the shoreline of seagulls. FRED SWEGLES, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
The pond at Poche Beach is clear of seagulls, and so is a long stretch of beach, once falconer Jorge Herrera and his hawk have made a sweep. Alex, an associate, had two predators on hand as backup in case gulls tried to return in Herrera's absence. FRED SWEGLES, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Meet Timber, a Harris hawk on patrol at Poche Beach. FRED SWEGLES, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
This is the "after" shot, showing how the pond and the beach looked Saturday after falconer Jorge Herrera cleared the area of seagulls. FRED SWEGLES, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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